It is time for Iraqi security forces to make a “final push” to Ramadi, the U.S. military said on Tuesday (October 13) adding that Iraqi forces “has tightened their ring around Ramadi.”
U.S. Army Colonel Steve Warren, a Baghdad-based spokesman for the U.S.-led military campaign, told a Pentagon briefing that U.S. military would like Iraqi forces “moving as rapidly as possible”.
“We believe that now a combination of the recent successes that they have had along with increased air power and increased ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) we have allocated to Ramadi fight—we believe that now is the time for a final push into Ramadi so we continue to encourage the Iraqis.”
A coalition led by the United States targeted Islamic State in Iraq with several attacks concentrated near Ramadi against Islamic State targets in recent days.
Meanwhile the Iraqi army and volunteer militia fighters, who are mostly Shi’ite, launched an assault on Wednesday (October 14) to retake the city of Baiji in northern Iraq from Islamic State militants, an Iraqi military spokesman said.
Baiji is near the country’s largest oil refinery and is only 150 km (90 miles) away from Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city which fell to the hardline Sunni militants of Islamic State in June 2014.
The city has since changed hands several times in fierce clashes. (Reuters)